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The Let: Reassessing the Tale of the Tape

The fuzzy yellow ball hurtles through the air at top speed, so you move your feet and get your racket back. Suddenly, the ball nicks the tape at the top of the net, changing its pace, height and even direction.

If this happened in the middle of a point, the player would have to adjust and keep playing. But in one of tennis’s oddest quirks, the rule is different during a serve that is good, when the action stops and the server has to try again.

Little is known about the origin of the “let serve” rule. Nate Chura, who covers the United States Open for WNYC radio, said the earliest Wimbledon tournaments did not have that rule. And the official rules of tennis allow governing bodies to play with or without the let serve, although only World Team Tennis and N.C.A.A. Division I tennis play without it.

But would the professional tours get rid of the let? Should they?

Neither the International Tennis Federation, which oversees the Davis Cup and the Fed Cup, nor the ATP and WTA Tours have any plans to implement such a change.

But the topic comes up often, said Gayle Bradshaw, the ATP executive vice president for rules and competition.

“There has not been enough support by players or tournaments to put forth an official proposal,” he said.

Still, Bradshaw said those shots “would bring a necessary additional element of luck into the game.”

Photo

Little is known about the origin of the “let serve” rule.Credit
Martin Bernetti/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

W.T.T. Commissioner Ilana Kloss said: “Why would you play with a rule that is different on the serve and during the point?” And it makes the game more exciting, too.”

As a part owner of the New York Sportimes, a World Team Tennis squad, Patrick McEnroe has seen the rule in action. McEnroe, who is also the general manager for player development at the United States Tennis Association, said that eliminating the let would “favor people with the speed to adjust quickly and people with better racket skills.”

Justin Gimelstob, a former professional player who is now an analyst for the Tennis Channel, said changing the let serve rule “sounds great in theory,” but added that the first time a big break point or match point was altered by a hard serve popping up and landing as a floater, there would be an outcry.

McEnroe said that would be a rare occurrence and not necessarily a negative one. “There’s also a chance that something extraordinary would happen, that a Djokovic or Nadal would scramble and run down the shot,” he said.

The let serve rule is not used at the college level because receiving players making their own calls sometimes cheated and called “let” to nullify an ace. Peter Smith, the men’s tennis coach at Southern California, said players adjusted fairly quickly.

He predicted that after a brief firestorm of complaints on the pro tour, no one would remember why the “let serve” was ever in place.

“Once you use this rule, it seems stupid to stop the point,” Smith said.

W.T.T. and the N.C.A.A. do not keep statistics on these serves, but Kloss and Smith said very few balls just roll over and even pop-ups were rare compared with slight nicks.

“The rule is a nonfactor in outcomes, but it adds a little unpredictability,” Smith said.

Unpredictability comes up a lot with proponents of eliminating the let serve. But Gimelstob sees a problem in that different tournaments have different net tensions. The nets at United States Open are quite tight while Wimbledon’s nets, stuck in the grass, are looser. McEnroe said those X factors would keep fans interested. Others say it would speed up the game.

The biggest hurdle to changing the rule may be a sense that it is not a top priority.

“If you made me take a position, I would like to get rid of let serve,” the ESPN announcer Cliff Drysdale said. “But before dealing with that, I’d rather focus on issues like servers bouncing the ball and installing a game clock to speed up play and cutting down on the players’ squawking and squealing. So changing the let serve would only be No. 4 on the list.”

A version of this article appears in print on August 29, 2011, on page F4 of the New York edition with the headline: The Let: Reassessing the Tale of the Tape. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe